Environmental harm

Since Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962 we’ve known humankind is capable of destroying Earth. A number of scientists believe it’s already too late to save it. What’s the evidence? Glaciers melt, acidification destroys ocean ecosystems, atmospheric carbon nears the point of irreversible global warming, soil is destroyed, fresh water disappears, fish and animal populations plummet, and the planet has become a garbage dump.

What stands in the way of remedy? Human population numbering 1 billion around 1800 has reached 7.7 billion only two centuries later. Archaic moral codes plus economic and military imperatives encourage further increase. Global economic goals promote individual self-indulgence and corporate profit, leading to further exploitation of the planet. Government serves those who exploit, and epithets target those who propose something different.

At last, a half-century since Rachel Carson, a generation that takes the fate of Earth seriously is entering politics and proposing a Green New Deal that fosters environmental sanity. The Green New Deal is preliminary and aspirational, but urgent, and attacks on it have begun. What’s really needed is a Green World War in which government is strengthened, democratic and individual rights are subordinated to the war effort, commodity rationing is enforced, and international alliances focus global resources on planetary recovery.

Instead, we debate trivia and wait for international conflict or environmental disaster to change frozen minds and institutions. In the end, implosion of the planet makes all other issues largely irrelevant.

DAVID SIXBEY

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